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I stared at the screen. There wasn’t a flicker of emotion on his face. Not a hint of what he was thinking or feeling. His rockstar mask well and truly fixed in place.
Ivy made a noise that sounded like someone had ripped her soul from her body. I knew at that moment I would never forgive him for hurting her like this, but most of all, I wouldn’t forgive him for making us think, albeit briefly, that we were enough.
Chapter 23
Grayson
TellingIvyandEthanthey had to leave nearly broke me. I tried to hold back the tears and stop the wobble in my voice. If they noticed, they never said a word. I watched them pack and promised it was only temporary, but I knew it was more than that. I’d sworn that I would choose them over the band, but that was when it only affected me. I would happily quit so I could spend my life with them, but this wasn’t just about me anymore.
I couldn’t watch Tanner, Mav, and Frankie lose everything we’d worked for since we were kids. And most of all, I couldn’t let them lose the music. The contract with the label we could happily break, even if we got paid less by another label none of us would care, but the music… We’d spent years crafting that and they would take the lot, leaving us with what? Covers? Other people’s songs. I couldn’t do that to Tanner. I couldn’t do that to any of them. I couldn’t pay that price for my selfish need for a happy ever after. So, I sent them away. I kissed them both. Slowly. Pouring my silent apologies into them, hoping that they’d forgive me, but knowing they never would. Not again.
I thought losing them both would be the worst pain I’d ever felt, but it was just the start. All it did was tear me open, and everything I went through after that was as if someone was pouring salt into my wounds, deepening my suffering. And most of that additional pain came from Hazel.
She made me hand over my wedding ring and the chain. Then the comments started. She’d find quiet moments when no one was around to tell me I was poisonous, that my deviant behavior nearly ruined the band and my relationship wasn’t normal, questioning how I thought it was something I could force on the world.
She was meant to be with us to manage the band's PR, but she didn’t seem to take an interest in anyone but me. Apparently, as she told me often, Tanner had redeemed himself with the label by getting sober, and Maverick and Frankie behaved ‘normally’ so weren’t a threat. No, the threat was me and mydisgusting sexual preferences.
She reminded me constantly about the consequences for the band, the fines the record company would bring down on us, and the impact it would have on album and ticket sales if I reached out to either of them. She talked a lot, constantly, usually when I was alone with her.
I felt overwhelmed. Things spiraled quickly. The need to rearrange my hotel room should have been my first sign, the bedding stripped back to the bare minimum and when I found myself in a shower so hot that it left blisters on my skin, I should have told someone. But instead, I closed down. I did what I needed to; played songs on stage that I’d played hundreds of times and didn’t have to think about, canceled my therapy appointments and avoided my family as much as possible.
I watched the calls and messages from Ethan rack up on my phone, although there was never one from Ivy. Mum called, then Dad, over and over but I didn’t call them back. I felt emotionally disconnected from them all. As if I was living underwater, numb, alone, and unable to really listen to anything anyone had to say because, in reality, none of it mattered.
When Hazel told me I had to get fake engaged to some blond woman I'd never even met, I think I broke again. This time, I didn’t have Ethan and Ivy to hold me together or Mum to talk me down from the edge. This time I didn’t cry or sob or slump to the floor because I didn’t feel safe. This time I found a hollow place in my broken heart, and I hid there.
“Gray, I’ll have Ebony meet you here tomorrow before the premiere. Remember, it’s your filthy behavior that led to all this. I’m only here because you’re messed up. Your relationship with those two deviants wasn’t normal. It makes me question if you’re normal. I mean, maybe after this press attention settles down, we need to get you into some sort of conversion therapy. It can really help you change your ways. I can help you. I know you might hate me right now for this, but it’s for the best. I’ve saved you from so many stories. People coming out of the woodwork claiming to have slept with you. Calling you dirty, a freak, abnormal. Is that what you want people to think? Is that the black mark you want to leave on the band? I know about your showers, Gray, and maybe they’re a good idea. A chance for you to wash away your sin. A chance for you to redeem yourself.” She leaned in close. “You disgust me, Grayson. Your little threesome disgusts me. I will wipe it from the memory of the world because I’m really good at my job, but the stain on your soul is there for all eternity.”
I wondered if I should react, feel hurt by her words, or even be angry, but I didn’t feel anything. Not a thing. Her words simply sank into me and cracked me open even further until I felt too broken to ever put back together.
Addi interrupted by walking into the room and Hazel’s tone lightened as she stepped back from me. Waiting until Addi had moved through to wherever she was going, Hazel turned. “And if we can sort some candid shots of you and Ebony, looking like you're having sex, that would be great. Think, in a car, against a window… that sort of thing. Where we can tell what you’re doing without seeing anything too revealing. It would be great publicity. I’ll set it all up and will make sure I have a photographer nearby. We need to prove to the world that you’re normal, even though we know differently.”
I walked from that conversation into the shower. It was the only way I could think to wash away the sting of her words. Stripping off my clothes, I stepped under the water. The heat burned, but it soothed the pain in my chest, so I didn’t care. I slumped to the floor, sobs ripping from my body.
I woke to the bright light of morning burning through my eyelids. When my eyes adjusted, I opened them to find Maverick sitting in a chair next to my bed, staring at his phone. I groaned, feeling tight skin pull across my back, reminding me of what I did last night.
“Gray, what the hell? Are you okay?” he asked, leaping up and leaning over me.
“Fine,” I croaked out.
“Really, because the welts on your shoulders and arms don’t tell me you’re fine, brother. I felt the pain. I fucking felt it. I found you in the shower, hurting yourself. How could you do that to yourself?”
“It just needed to wash away the day. It got out of hand. That’s all.”
“This is Hazel, isn’t it? You don’t have to listen to her. None of us want you to give up what you had or pretend you’re someone you’re not.”
“I’m ruining it for you all. I won’t do that. I won’t wreck what we have for something I want.”
Mav moved to sit on the edge of my bed. “And what do you want, Gray? Tell me.”
“I want the band.”
“Like hell you do. You want your marriage. I saw you with them. I saw how happy you were. I’d rather lose you from the band and see you happy than have to watch another doctor sedate you to calm you down and then dress the damage you’ve inflicted on yourself, like I did last night, Gray.”
Another groan escaped my lips as I tried to sit up, fighting the urge to tell him the truth. No one knew what the record company wanted except Addi and me, and she was sworn not to tell them. They had her sign an ironclad NDA to secure her silence.
“It’s too late. I lost them the minute I sent them home. I just need to do what Hazel wants and get through the rest of the tour.”
“Bollocks, you need to go home now and sort this out with them. You’re in no fit state to be here.”
